105-year-old's lesson for long life: Tomato soup, lightness of heart

HARRISBURG (AP) — How do you get to live to 105? Eat tomato soup every day, and really, let go of the small stuff.

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By IVEY DEJESUS

poconorecord.com

By IVEY DEJESUS

Posted Apr. 29, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By IVEY DEJESUS
Posted Apr. 29, 2014 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

HARRISBURG (AP) — How do you get to live to 105? Eat tomato soup every day, and really, let go of the small stuff.

It's worked for Frances Merlina.

On Sunday, surrounded by some 50 nieces, nephews, cousins, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren and her three sons, Merlina added one more year to her centennial, celebrating her 105th birthday in style at her residence, the Homeland Center in Harrisburg, her nails fabulously polished in red and a sparkling tiara on her silver-coiffed head.

True to her words, and with the help of her son Joe, Merlina worked her way through her lunch of tomato soup, coffee and anisette cookies. Her son says she has three cookies every day — dunked in her coffee, of course.

Joe Merlina said that her food choices aside, his mother has benefited from having an easy disposition all her life.

"She's just a loving person," he said. "She has a sense of humor, and I never saw her angry. Never."

Born in 1909, Merlina could just very well be the region's oldest resident. She grew up on a farm in Halifax until her mother died when she was five, when she went with her sister to live at the Catholic Diocese's orphanage for girls at Sylvan Heights. When she turned 16, her father bought a house in Shipoke and the family reunited.

(The old Sylvan Heights mansion was renovated into its current use as the home for the YWCA of Greater Harrisburg).

Joe Merlina said the years at the orphanage made a deep impression on his mother.

"Here she was, five years old and put in a home, and spoke only Italian in a home that was run by Irish nuns," he says. "That was tough. That's why she's here today at 105. She grew up tough. She had to grow up tough."

A beautician at long-gone Kaufmann's Department Store on Market Square, Frances married Andy Merlina in 1929 and the couple settled into a big house on 15th Street where they had four children.

Sunday's festivities began with Mass, celebrated by Merlina's nephew, the Rev. John Acris, who retired from Our Lady of Lourdes in Enola years ago. Acris' father was Merlina's brother.

"She's very faithful," he said. "Everything she did she was faithful and steadfast and committed. She went around doing her daily responsibilities as a housewife and mother and she did them with a very pleasant attitude. I never saw her get angry or be upset. She had such a tremendous attitude."

Merlina has made an impression among the youngest generation in her family.

Regarding the biggest lesson she has learned from the family matriarch, 10-year-old great-granddaughter, Anna Reeves, of Camp Hill, said: "You need to take care of yourself in order to grow older like her."

Her younger brother, Micah Reeves, second that: "You have to live as long as you can. You have to be grateful for who you are. She's a good fighter. She's lived all these years and she's been such a great woman."